| British Mini Showdown 2006 |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Dom | ||
|
Saturday I left my house at noon on the Saturday to call for Jammy. We left his after one and set up to the petrol station. The journey was pretty uneventful other than your usual idiot sitting in the middle lane doing 50 causing me to move from the slow lane, to middle lane to fast lane then back to slow lane to over take.  We got to the services at branbury where we rang Pikey7 to let him know we were near and then had some food. We called on his, had a good old chat about his Mini and left his around four after convincing him to come accross on the Sunday. We continued on and after driving round Stratford-upon-Avon like last year, we found the petrol station where we asked directions from before and found are way to the Shakespear County Raceway. I paid my money and got in and parked up, while Jammy didn't bring any money so had to go back to the petrol station to get his cash out!  Parked up, said hello and was threatened I'd get chucked in the paddling pool so after that I just jumped in myself with mighty mini, millsmini, THE SHTIG, CharlieBrown and some kawabunga kids. What can I say the water was freezing when you first got in, but after a few minutes it felt nice. As I got out, Jammy turned up in his MR2 and was chucked right in  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera out at this point but it did come out to take some pictures of the cars that evening.          Later that evening Katypilla turned up arrousing jammy and brought a slide to go with the paddling pool. I got a before and after shot of bristolminimad showing everyone how to do it.  The rest of the antics are caught on video including Bounce's 5 attempts to get in the pool including the 4 in a row where he failed!  CharlieBrown continued to attempt to change his carb with lots of help.  Later that evening we needed some more supplies so myself, Katypilla, Jammy and bristolminimad drove into the darkness. Katypilla enjoyed Jammys company from behind   Right, moving swiftly on. That evening we had a group of 15 - 20 of us go on the dodgems and cause havoc trying to steal peoples hats. No one stole mine!  By twelve most people had retired to bed all that were left were myself, jammy, Katypilla, millsmini, chelseahelen, Bounce, CharlieBrown and marksmini. We played the game of getting the beer can plastic holder of your fingers. I took the longest taking the calm approach of not panicking and taking my time to slip it off my fingers. Bounce and jammy went mad and used the forceful approah but it paid off. Katypilla was the fastest and got it off in no time at all and millsmini, chelseahelen, CharlieBrown and markminis were in the middle. After that around one I retired to bed, then at two the tent was jumped on by marksmini, Bounce and millsmini who then proceeded to drag me halfway out the tent waking me up!  After some wise words the stopped and I continued my sleep to get a good 6 hours  Sunday Got up to the suprising sound of hearing marksmini and Bounce still chatting away, as if they hadn't gone to bed. Bounce to be fair looked a bit worse for wear but marksmini looked suprisingly normal. Anyhow, myself marksmini, brawlyrox, pandora, ed4ran the lobster, staffordsi with the diesel mini, walked over to see ades car which had appeared with pete that morning. Stunning car.  Later we ate Tipcat's fantastic pancakes as the rest of the TMF crowd awoke and appeared from their tents. Thanks, very tasty. Myself, jammy, mighty minis better half and staffordsi with the diesel mini sat around for a few hours enjoying the heat and cool breeze before jammy and I wondered off to the stands where I filmed the minis going down the strip. To my suprise junglemini.com and favminigirl turned up and sat with us! (Two fellow TMF'ers from Kent) After a good chat, watching the minis beating the bmws and a like we left the grandstand and I met up with Dean (willy Darstardly) and ade at the Z Cars stand.Here is Deans fabulous mini, not quite ready to go down the track but was close to being finished.  As with Ades, it was great to meet up with the owner of a project that you had been reading about on a thread on the forum and having a chat and seeing the progress made in person. Dean did all the work on his car apart from the paint job.  Good work!Pete and Ade were trying to get to grips with the throttle cable that was causing Ades car to underperform down the strip.  Again, nice to catch up ade and pete... let us know when your car is ready pete! Also spent time talking to R1minimagic and took some videos of his car close up and down the strip but no photos A few more cars turned up to the stand here are the pics.   favminigirl's dev    Amy's stunning estate   It was a very hot day and it was great to meet everyone and catch up with old friends. Good to see spam and mr slushy come and say hi and to hear mr slushy will be joining us again this year for the Nürburgring Run. Spam got his birthday present from THE SHTIG by being thrown in the pool So after a 5 hour drive home with the company most of the way back with favminigirl and junglemini.com with their overheating mini "dev" we fort through the traffic on the m40 and stopped for tea at by chance the same services myself and jammy stayed at. Before that we were delayed by another hour due to having to back track and take an alternative route out of banbury due to a car fire down one of the country roads vital that we needed to take to get home! (Oh and jammy left in his mr2 with mighymini and brawlyrox's cars on the way down to plymouth) We queued on the m40 to get onto the larger ques on the m25 caused due to roadworks and accidents... now being sat in ques doing an average speed of 20 mph for 2 hours wasn't helpful for an overheating mini but they managed to keep the car running and make it home.  There was a very nice ferrari keeping us company in the traffic so I got a quick snap of it.  After favmingirl and junglemini went their way and I went mine I hit more traffic and part of the motorway being closed due to another accident causing me take a massive diversion through the kentish towns of rochester and gilingham adding on another hour to my journey before making it back onto the motorway to get home. Good weekend. I'm working on sorting out the video footage at the moment so I'll put that up when and if I can. Look forward to seeing those coming with us on the Nürburgring Run in just over a months time.
|
||
